Franz Kafka Research Paper

A society is a group of people coming together to decide on the social norms of a community. A person’s greatest antagonist within a community is the society members. According to society, people need someone to tell them what to do, what to believe and even what to think. A story called The Metamorphosis, written by Franz Kafka expresses the idea that a daily routine dictated by a society leads to a meaningless life. Also, a poem called “The Unknown Citizen”, written by W.H. Auden, expressed the idea that “scientific data fails to capture the human quality of life” and that “our lives are largely shaped and dictated” by a greater society leading to the loss of a meaningful life (“The Unknown” 301). Despite differences in the plot of Kafka’s

Franz Kafka and W.H. Auden had successful lives, that led to countless accomplishments. Yet, their lives fell into a routine and became meaningless. Franz Kafka, born on July 3rd, 1883 in Prague, Czech Republic was the eldest of five children by his parents. Kafka graduated from German Karl-Ferdinand University in 1906 with a doctorate in jurisprudence. Post-graduation, he worked in “Worker’s Accident Insurance Office for the Kingdom of Bohemia” from 1908 until 1992. He died on June 3rd,1994 two years after he retired from the insurance office (Beetz 979-980). Kafka stayed with the insurance company his entire life, but he disliked the job, just like the character Gregor Samson in The Metamorphosis. Kafka did not become famous for the utmost of his works of writing until

However, these differences should not become suppressed. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka expressed that Gregor “had not been sick once in five years of service” revealing that Gregor is a diligent man who will do anything for the company (947). This is a personality trait of Gregor that is different to another employee at his company. In addition, in “The Unknown Citizen”, Auden states that the unknown citizen is a “modern sense of the old-fashion word, he was a saint” revealing that the man did the right thing, he was innocent, kind and selfless (Line 7). A person's personality is an essential part of life because they feel valued in society because without personality we are all “equal”. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor found pity in his room when looking “on the wall directly opposite hung a photograph of Gregor from his military days, which showed him dressed as a lieutenant, with a carefree smile, his hand on his dagger, his bearing and his uniform commanding respect” (953). He found pity because he realized that he morphed into an insect, which stripped his personality away from him. Gregor’s transformation was the result of him being too different from the social norm, so the “society” punishes him for being an abnormally to their system. Both authors’ articulated the idea that there are numerous variations of people’s personality that without their